


Beneath the mask

by krypo



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: M/M, bad is a good student, dream fakes being mute, george is a dream stan and doesnt know the cute boy at school is dream, highchool au, secret youtuber au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:02:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25181440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/krypo/pseuds/krypo
Summary: Dream is a youtuber.George is a fan.Dream can not let George find out that Clay and Dream are the same person.The solution? Fake being mute.||DISCONTINUED||
Relationships: Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 57
Kudos: 721





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [title](https://youtu.be/Uq7kyf1T_lk)

Dream turned his head as he heard Sapnap approach the lunch table he was currently sat at.. "Wow, didn't think you'd show up,” He remarked as the shorter boy lay down his tray and sat across from him. “Half of lunch is already over."

Sapnap sighed exasperatedly as he placed his tray on the table and sat down. "Dumb English teacher wanted to keep me after class for something. And you know how lunch queues are if you’re even a few seconds late."

Dream did know, he'd actually done an experiment for his statistics class once where he had joined the lunch queue between 1 minute after the bell rang and 5 minutes, measuring the time it took for him to get his lunch from when it was 1 minute and 10 seconds past the bell, all the way up to 4 minutes and 50 seconds. And when he drew the line graph, it was definitely rather exponential.

It had taken him a month to get all the data, but it was worth it since he got an A. This was probably why he was labelled a nerd.

"Did you hear by the way?" Sapnap mentioned, half focused on his food. "There's a transfer kid from England, he's a junior though so we probably won't see him much."

"Huh." Dream responded, more as an indication that he was listening than actual interest in the conversation topic. He was more focussed on ‘finishing’ what was considered food in the school canteen so that he could have the rest of lunch free.

"Yeah, you might see him though, since you're in some pretty advanced coding and statistics classes." Sapnap continued, pausing for a moment after the statement, which Dream interpreted as more for the purpose of dramatic effect than hesitation. "Nerd." Sapnap finished.

"Well you can thank my nerdiness for your 8k subs." Dream teased back.

"9k now actually, It went up after you uploaded the colab."

"Still less than mine." Dream boasted.

"Wow so humble"

Dream finished eating and left to empty his tray, checking the clock when he came back and noting that there was about 15 minutes left of lunch break. "I'm gonna go to the library to work on another plugin." He informed Sapnap while gathering his backpack .

Sapnap wasn’t surprised by this, yet he feigned disappointment. "Wow, not going to wait for me?"

"Sapnap, Sappy Wappy, Sappitus Nappitus, you are my dear, dear friend. But you and I both know, I would choose code over you any day." Dream joked back, knowing that his friend was only teasing.

Sapnap sighed, "Dream you hoe." He remarked offhandedly as he continued to eat his lunch.

Dream laughed as held his backpack and began walking in the direction of the library.

  


* * *

  


Sapnap was right, the transfer kid was in his coding class.

Dream had definitely expected that, seeing as all of the other students in the class were juniors, and he was the only sophomore. What he hadn't expected however, was that George (He had found out his name when the teacher called on him for a question) was wearing his merch.

He thought that he had finally started hallucinating after so many late nights struggling to balance his videos and homework, and had begun imagining his signature smiley face on everything that he saw in some sort of trippy delusion. But no, that was definitely his merch.

What he also didn't expect, is that the new kid was also kinda smart. He would definitely be having competition for top of the class.

As he began picking up his books and pencil case after the bell had rung, a small trinket rolled towards his feet and he picked it up, curious to see what it was. What he saw was a small figure of his youtube icon, a tiny white Dream, with just a body and a head with a smiley face painted on. It looked professional enough that if he hadn't known better, he would have thought it was part of his merch.

He looked around, already having an idea as to who this trinket belonged to. His eye caught the short black haired British boy and he walked over, gently tapping him on his back and holding out the handmade mini dream to him.

"Oh! That fell off my pencil case." George reached out and took it from his hand. "Thank you." He gave a grateful smile.

Dreams first thought was _’wow, his accent’_. It wasn't overly strong like the ones in the movies, but it was just enough that you could tell it was there. His second thought was _’his smile is nice’_.

That was when he realised that he should probably say something. He opened his mouth to say 'no problem' but then he realised.

_He doesn't know that I'm Dream_

Dream panicked as he thought of what to do. If he spoke, George would definitely recognise his voice, and he didn't want the entire school to know about his youtube career. He had already been bullied for liking minecraft enough in middle school. He also didn't want his fans to know which school he went to. Most of them were okay, but he had seen a few obsessive ones, and those few fans lowkey terrified him. 

He pulled out his phone, and quickly typed on his notepad app _’no problem, be more careful next time okay?'_ before turning it around to show to George.

George read it, every second felt like a minute as Dream internally panicked. "Yeah, I'm a bit clumsy." George responded. "My name’s George by the way."

_'i know'_ Dream started typing into his phone before realising that sounded way too creepy. He erased it and typed _’hi! im clay’_. Maybe not talking had its benefits.

"Clay? Is your second name block?" George asked.

Dream panicked. _’no, why?’_ he typed.

George sighed, looking almost disappointed. "Nevermind, it's just a dumb joke." He looked at the clock. "Oh! It's almost time for my next class." He quickly attached the dream trinket back onto his pencil case. "See you later Clay!" He gave a wave as he left the classroom.

_I'm fucked,_ Dream thought as he watched the short boy leave.

  


* * *

  


Dream told Sapnap about his experience as they sat at the school library after school.

Sapnap pressed his hands together and rested his chin on them. "Boi, lemme get this straight. The British kid is a fan of your youtube, you didn't want him to know that you were Dream, so you pretended to be mute?"

“Well to be fair, I wasn’t thinking about the mute part, I was just trying to find a way not to speak.” Dream answered.

Sapnap sighed. “You know you could have just…. left the trinket in front of him and not talked to him right?”

“I- “ Dream started trying to think of a logical reason as to why that did not happen. “...didn’t think of that.”

“And now he thinks you’re mute.”

“Once again, that was not my intention but…” Dream pressed his head further against the library table, disappointed in himself as he realised that Sapnap was correct. "That's exactly what happened."

"You idiot"

  


* * *

  


"Darryl?" George asked. Bad had been helping him around the school as well as explaining how american schools work to him since he was part of the student council. George still didn't understand why they weren't allowed backpacks between classes.

"What is it, muffin?" The senior responded, cheery as usual.

"Do you know ASL?"

"Um, yes? Why?" Bad asked, confused.

"Can you teach me?"


	2. Chapter 2

George groaned as he stared at the sheet Bad had printed for him, 26 hand gestures in a grid with blue letters underneath them. He found it a little extra, Bad could have just sent him the image, but he was grateful that he had a physical copy to look at during lessons when he couldn't use his phone.

"Why are A and S the same?" He asked, more frustrated than confused.

Bad lifted up the sheet, pointing to the thumb in each image. "They're not the same though, the thumb goes over the first two fingers in S, see?" He explained, abnormally patiently for someone who had been repeating the same things for the past hour.

"That's so dumb, what if I want to say AAA for batteries and I end up signing ass?"

"That's... an oddly specific scenario, maybe just don't buy AAA batteries?" He suggested.

George frowned. "But they're the most useful one's, I can add tin foil to make them AA or I can use them as AAA. If I buy AA batteries, what if I need them for something that only takes AAA?"

The older boy just stared blankly for a moment, too tired to reply. "My head hurts." He stated eventually.

"And that's not all, why are M and N so similar? What if your finger slips? Or-"

"bAD!" A voice interrupted from the side of the library table opposite the window as a figure in a blue hoodie ran closer. "Oh my god I knew you'd be in the library you nerd come on I need you for something." 

"Skeppy!" He yelled quietly. "This is a library you can't shout that loud muffin! Other people are studying."

"Studying is for losers." The freshman proclaimed.

Bad looked like a single father who did not get paid enough in child support. Meanwhile, Zak decided to take this opportunity to grab his arm before he could protest any more.

"Wait! Oh my goodness Skeppy I wa-"

But it was too late, Zak was surprisingly strong for a 5' 1" 14 year old, and soon he had already dragged poor Bad out of the door.

George sighed as he placed the paper into his bag, standing up and unwrapping it from the chair ,ready to catch the bus home.

* * *

It was definitely too late to be up on a school night, but George had his priorities straight, and Dream had tweeted 6 minutes ago that he was going to stream. Which was why he had been obsessively refreshing his twitch for the past 6 minutes at 11:46.

It was definitely better than in England, where he had to stay up to 4am to even have a chance at catching any of his streams, although he supposed he was able to watch a few that were on weekends, so maybe he should consider this an improvement.

~

Dream sighed as he opened up obs, he had finally finished his maths work and although it was late, wanted to play Minecraft for a bit to get his mind off of it.

Minecraft was his escape from reality, where he could forget, if only just for a few hours, about his real life and put on a persona, be seen as the person he had always wanted to be.

The cold blue light of a late autumn night shone through his drawn back curtains, and he wondered if he should turn on the lights instead of his desk lamp.

Eventually he decided against it and opened up his twitch to go live, quickly getting over 100 viewers seconds as soon as he started, probably due to his tweet.

He took a breath, shoving away thoughts of school as he took on his usual streaming tone. "Hey guys, so, welcome to the stream, early squad am I right? So today I thought I'd-

~

George couldn't help but smile a little as Dream called them 'early squad'. It was a little weird, but it made him feel a little bit bubbly inside, even though there were already 127 other people watching the stream.

He had been interested in Dream’s channel ever since watching a video of him demonstrating a plugin he had coded, where placing a block would break the block next to it, and breaking one would duplicate it.

His interest had only deepened when he found out that Dream was a talented coder who developed for Munchy, now it was closer to an obsession than an interest.

The tiny stuffed hand stitched Dream figure sitting on his desk seemed to agree.

 _What do you know_ he thought to himself _You have cotton for brains_

~

Dream smashed his keyboard a little too loudly than someone whose parents and sister were sleeping in rooms barely metres away from him. “This is bullshit!” He cried before clicking the quit game button and deleting the world.

George typed a _not pog_ in the twitch chat

~

“Have you considered adding an option to donate to your streams? You’re so entertaining and I don’t know how to give you my money” Dream read from the chat, laughing a little. “Well I’m in highschool and still live with my parents, I don’t know what I’d need the money for.”

He stopped to break his furnaces. “I mean, if you wanna buy me a car I have no problem with sending you my paypal, I’m getting my driver's license soon.” He joked.

~

George sighed as he checked the clock, Dream had been streaming for over two hours and it was close to 2am.

 _Sleep is probably a good idea right now_ , he thought.

 _Sleep is for losers_ , the stuffed Dream seemed to say back.

And who was George to argue?

* * *

Sapnap laughed as he showed Dream a clip of his latest stream, the noise of the cafeteria too loud for the sound of the phone’s speaker to bother anyone. “You brOke a bush And thEn the sAnd ju-”

Dream sighed, trying to eat his food. “Yes Snapmap, I fell, now can you please stop showing me that clip?”

“And then you rage quit! Look!”

The video on the phone showed the menu screen, opened just milliseconds before Dream hit the floor of the ravine. “This is bullshit!” He heard himself yell, before the mouse furiously clicked on the quit button, then singleplayer, then delete world.

“The clip has more views than your stream.” Sapnap pointed out.

“People are weird.”

“Is that Dream?” A voice says from behind them, and Dream panics because _oh god he knows that accent._

Sure enough when he turned around, a familiar short black haired boy was standing behind him.

“Yeah,” Sapnap replied smoothly, “I was just watching a clip of his last stream.”

George’s eyes almost seemed to light up in excitement. “No way! I watch him too! I was actually up until 4 last ni-” He trailed off on a ramble about his favourite youtuber.

Dream tried not to show the panic on his face as he ate the white gloop that qualified for mashed potatoes at school.

“Oh wait, I don’t even know your name and I was rambling, sorry, I’m George.”

“Everyone already knows, we don’t get transfer students a lot, and I’m Nick.”

A look of recognition crossed George’s face as he finally focused on the conversation around him instead of fanboying. “Wait a minute, you sound super familiar, aren’t you Sapnap?”

“Yep.”

“Oh my god I can’t believe I just ranted about Dream to Sapnap.” He said, looking a little horrified.

Sapnap laughed. “It’s cool man.”

Relieved, George continued his fanboying. “It’s so cool that you get to record and talk with him, do you help code any of the plugins he uses? It would be so amazing if I could look at them.” He paused for a moment, nervous as to if he was overstepping. “But like, you don’t have to if you don’t want to of course.”

Dream was pretty sure that the glob of ‘mashed potato’ was staring at him.

“I don’t do much of the code, Dream does it all usually. And we only ever talk through voice chat, online friend struggles y’know? I have the code on my pc at home, I could send it to you, what's your discord?”

Dream had to remember to thank Sapnap later for that cover.

“Oh my god thank you so much! I’ll write it down, here.” George tore out a corner of one of his binders, pulling out a pen and quickly jotting down his name and tags before handing it to Sapnap. “This is so crazy, like what are the chances? I feel like I’m going to wake up any time now.”

“I get that dude, but we’re just humans you know? Not ethereal and eternal beings sadly, then maybe I wouldn’t have to deal with tests.”

George laughed at the joke, which Dream totally did not find cute at all.

“So do you have super hearing abilities or something? How did you know I was watching Dream from across this super loud cafeteria?"

George suddenly remembered why he was there, he had said a little too much to Bad this morning on the way to lessons, and now he was forcing him to ask the cute boy in his coding class to hang out with him.

It had then evolved into an argument of whether McDonalds was an acceptable place to ask someone out to. Apparently ‘Their cheesy fries are good!’.

George turned to face Dream, who at this point was trying to mentally cancel his own existence. “Um, Clay are you, like, free after school on Friday?”

Dream had to relearn how to nod.

“So, um, I was wondering if you, um, wanted to get milkshakes at Wendys?”

Dream was pretty sure that his brain had just fried because _Oh my god a cute boy is asking me out_. He sat with his mouth open, trying to process what had just happened before Sapnap startled him back to reality with a hard kick under the table.

He fumbled to take out his phone from his pocket, opening notepad and typing _’sure’_.

George smiled. “Wait for me at the gate on Friday then!” He said before running off.

Sapnap smirked. “Soooo, how much are you willing to pay me for his discord?”

“Shut up.” Dream spat back, hiding his blush in his arms from acting like an idiot to his newly discovered crush.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ||Discontinued||  
> reason: left the dream fandom


End file.
